The growing use of the Internet by businesses around the globe is creating a need for a scalable and secure home for every organization with a mission critical Internet component. Various facilities exist to provide Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Application Service Providers (ASPs), and content providers with a safe place to house their hardware.
In a typical co-location model, member sites are placed in an environment where they have access to a network provider, site management and web hosting arrangements, and other similar types of services. While co-location models expedite electronic transmissions, the clustering of member sites in these facilities makes them vulnerable to vandals, thieves, and even terrorist attacks. Because modern e-commerce companies moving billions of dollars over the Internet can not afford to jeopardize the physical security of their equipment, co-location facilities are generally protected by advanced security systems. For instance, video cameras record activity in and around the facilities, sensors, including motion and sound sensors, detect suspicious or uncharacteristic events, and computers located in security control centers monitor access points. These systems may also include magnetic card readers or similar electromagnetic locking devices granting member users access to certain parts of the facilities or to individually locked cages configured for networking and/or server co-location.
Unfortunately, in the security conscious world of the Internet, the security systems of the prior art have many limitations. For one, they do not provide co-located members with enough control. Although these systems are designed to track everyone in a co-location facility at all times, members do not have access to this information. Keeping this information private may work in hospitals or jails, for example, but it does not provide enough leverage to e-commerce companies whose businesses depend on the facility in which their equipment is placed being absolutely free from interruption of service (power, air conditioning, the interconnections themselves, etc.). In addition, under current co-location security systems, members are unable to schedule visitor access to the facility through a user interface connected to the World Wide Web. This lack of automated access poses an additional security risk because it allows security officers, rather than the members themselves, to have too much control regarding visitor access to co-located member sites in the facility. Moreoever, the security systems of the prior art are not completely integrated. Tracking information from all the various components of the system is not available on a centralized database accessible by co-located members. Finally, visitors to one co-location facility do not have access to other co-location facilities owned by the same organization without having to go through a lengthy visitor enrollment system which is both burdensome and costly in the fast-paced world of e-commerce.
Therefore, there is a need for an Internet exchange security system and method that is both completely integrated and that is also able to be monitored and access controlled by co-located members of the facility. There is also a need for a more efficient co-location facility visitor access and enrollment system.